End of Week 2...

It has been a crazy few weeks but very exciting! I have been able to get some serious practical experience here doing nerve blocks, tapping joints looking for infection, lots of bandage changes, physical exams, opthalmology exams and lots of more. The staff here continues to be amazing! I am learning so much from all of them. They teach me arabic and french and I help them with their english, needless to say we have very entertaining conversations! I have fallen in love with the city, and have enjoyed exploring all the new things. I haven't been as good taking pictures of all of our cases because it's so busy during the day working with all of the different animals coming in with many different ailments but here are a few from the week. I usually re order the pictures so that they make sense or are in chronological order but the internet is slow and I'm over this blog so I'm going to caption them as is...warning some are gross.

This mule has a huge access in it's neck that shot across the room when we lanced it. Pretty cool.

I made dinner for the house...american classic...Mac N Cheese with BBQ beef.

This poor donkey was in last week for a bite wound from another donkey to the leg and now a new one to the...ahem... testicle.

These stallions are beautiful...they paint them with Henna for decoration

We found these parasites in the nose of a donkey! I have  a video too...it moves.

We headed into the Medina to find the tanneries and we walked through the metal making district, they make beautiful things.

A donkey waiting for it's owner in the medina. 

The river running through the medina

The leather shops are amazing and the colors are great!

Tanneries, the hides go in the white first then dipped in the colors, 3-5 weeks for each hide.

The shop keeper kept pushing that I buy a leather jacket...because you know I have such a use for one.

More metal district.

Me and Hanane trying to find the concert 

Mehdi and I laughing at dinner

Our view of the dinner from the medina

Hanane, Me, and Mehdi at dinner in the medina

Baby donkey follows us everywhere...including to the pool

Moroccan Pastilla...a friend quesadilla thing with powder sugar and cinnamon on top...sweet and salty... pretty good.

Also, I had to say a FINAL good bye to this kid via Skype...I am proud of him and going to miss him like crazy but he is where he is supposed to be. Love you HTolbert.

End of Week 1

My first week here at the fondouk has been amazing! I have done so much I cant even begin to explain it. Every day is different and we say an array of cases. These animals are truly amazing and what they do for this city is so important. Without them the medina would not survive, they are literally the ONLY transportation in and out of the medina, which houses thousands of shops, cafes, and homes. The mules and donkeys carry in every single thing that is brought into the medina.  The people here do try to take care of their animals but some of them come to us in pretty rough shape. Part of the Fondouk's mission here is to educate the people on proper animal care and welfare. I wish I could play a bigger role in this but me not speaking arabic and all is a bit of a problem! This week I have been able to place catheters, perform nerve blocks, place sutures, perform a castration, float teeth, and many other things that I get so excited about!

  The people here are amazing! They are so friendly and giving. Several times this week I have been invited to breakfast by various workers here at the Fondouk. They love to eat and they love to eat together! They are doing their best to fatten me up. We all eat lunch together everyday and the housekeeper prepares various meals. I'm not going to lie...lunch is my favorite part. I love eating new foods and better yet I love eating new foods that I don't have to cook!  They sit around and laugh and speak loudly and make fun of each other and I just sit and smile a lot. Occasionally someone will translate a conversation and I can follow most by hand gestures and voice inflections but sometimes I don't even try... I just sit back and enjoy. Also, every night the interns invite me to eat dinner together and I feel bad because they feed me all the time but they wouldn't have it any other way... they love to feed you. I am planning on making dinner for them to pay them back. 

   I was able to head into the Medina again last night and shop in the marketplace and my friend took me to this amazing cafe that is in an old converted house in the heart of the medina. You climb up 4 stories to a rooftop seating area and you can see all around the other houses of the medina and the mountains in the distance. It was beautiful. The rest I will share in pictures because I can't put into words this amazing and bizarre culture. 

The doors are opened!

Waiting in the shade for their turn

My case...a septic joint. We flushed the joint and injected antibiotic via regional limb perfusion. I was able to scrub in and place injections sites.

A mule arriving that was unable to stand...they load them in the back of anything.

I went on a walkabout to find ice cream and found a modern city center.

and ice cream.

Baby donkey's mom didn't make it...we are bottle feeding her now, she is still adorable!

I said they will load the animals into the back of anything!

In she goes!

Putting on sterile gloves from any surface...ferriers anvail? Sure!

Two mule colts in for castration, I castrated the one on the left.

My first castration!

Breakfast!....lots and lots of bread!

Cous Cous! with every type of vegetable you can imagine.

The market in the medina

Fresh vegetables all from locals farms

The Cafe 44 

More of the market

The view from the cafe...those are all the tops of houses, most have living areas on the roof.

This is the view walking back to the fondouk, that is the start of the medina on the left

First day at the Clinic..

I will admit first things that I was terrified for today! Ok, maybe not terrified but extremely nervous to the point where I didn't get much sleep. Everyone has been asking me if I was nervous going to a foreign country and traveling on my own and I can honestly say that no I wasn't. I was nervous about working at the clinic. Vet students will get this, because all of a sudden I am being held responsible for all of the information I am to have supposed to learn the last two years! The usually have students here that are in their 4th or 5th year (depending on the country, some vet programs are 5 years) which means they know what they are doing. I on the other hand felt clueless, so needless to say I was pretty anxious for today.
  We started this morning at 7 am and did physical exams on all of our in hospital patients. Their are 3 interns (young veterinarians that have graduated but are in their first 1-2 years training) and currently I am the only student, we all have several patients assigned to us. When the head doctor arrived we start rounds. We all go around to every patient in the hospital and each one of us presents our own cases. Luckily I had asked one of the interns last night to translate the history for me. The group was very accommodating and spoke in english for rounds so that I could follow each case. At 8 am they open the doors and anyone with a large animal in need of help comes in. It was steady stream of patients, lameness exams, large wounds, colics, neurologic cases, abscesses, and an array of other cases. Most were taken care of quickly and sent on their way. Those that needed extra care will be left to stay in the hospital. I mostly jumped from case to case helping out where I could and waited for translations. I was able to dive right in and clean and flush wounds, place sutures, change bandages and whatever else. At 12:00 they shut the doors, anyone that comes after that will have to come back tomorrow. After the doors are shut we finished up the rest of the procedures that needed to be done and stabilized the patients that were left in the hospital. The clinic provides lunch for everyone , so we stopped and gathered and I ate my first moroccan meal, cous cous (of course), roasted chicken, and lots of "du pain" (which is bread). You eat everything with your hands or scoop it up with the bread, which is awesome, I no longer feel improper for licking my fingers and picking at everything with my hands! The rest of the afternoon is spent finishing up cases and administering medications. Here is a run down of my current cases with pictures! (nothing gross yet...I forgot to take pictures of the gory stuff.)

The donkey in this pen has a sarcoid tumor on his sheath that we inject with an experimental chemotherapy drug and monitor the size. They have had good luck with this treatment.

The sarcoid tumor

This young filly came in with a large laceration wound in her arm pit, today I placed a few sutures to help keep it closed.

This horse came in unable to stand, they placed her in a sling and we will keep watching her. We suspect neurologic disorder or a fracture of the vertebrae compressing the spinal chord.

This donkey has a large abscess on his cheek that I scrub and flush daily. It gets pretty gross.

He likes to hide in here when I go to give him his medication.

This is the cutest think I have ever seen! His mom came in for colic. He is 1 week old and loves to follow everyone around.

There is a random turtle that I discovered today. He usually hides beneath the palm trees but occasionally ventures out to eat fallen berries. His shell is a bit malformed, I'm assuming from some accidental mule stepping.

#MyRoccanAdventure in Fes, Morocco

I made it! After 3 planes, 2 trains, a taxi and 28 hours I arrived in Fes, Morocco. I will be completing a month long externship at the American Fondouk . This clinic does Non-profit work for the working animals here in Fes. Horses, donkeys, and mules pull various carts and haul loads in an out of the "Medina". The medina miles of torturous alleyways that were built in 900 A.D. Thousands of merchants are located there selling breads, meats, vegetables, leather, slippers, clothing and anything else you can think of! Since the alleyways are so tight only donkeys and mules are able to navigate them with carts to carry in the merchandise. These animals are given free veterinary care from the American Fondouk. I am going to attempt to blog about my experiences while I am here...we'll see how it goes since I'm usually such an amazing blogger.
  I arrived at the fondouk about 9:00 local time last night and got a brief tour of the clinic and then shown my room which is located above the clinic. After a much needed 9 hours of sleep I got a real tour of the clinic this morning. There are about 15 stalls, 3 paddocks, and many trees that animals are kept in or tied to. Since it's the weekend no patients were seen but the in hospital animals needed medications and bandage changes. Since my  french is so awful the interns were very patient with me and explained everything in english. I am trying to use my 2 year high school french as much as possible but it's pretty bad despite my rosetta stone! As I hear it more it's coming back a little, maybe by the end of the month I won't sound so much like an idiot. The moroccan intern Karahtura (I'm double checking the spelling) offered to show me some of the medina, which is a good thing because it's no secret that my sense of direction is less than ideal, combine this with miles and miles of alleyways, duplicating shops, foreign language, and jet lag it would have been a disaster! We wandered the winding alleys and I picked out all of the things I will be buying when I convince someone to help me barter...also no secret that I suck at that. My final task to complete today was getting groceries. My housing is a dorm style apartment with a community kitchen and eating area that I share with the interns and eventually some other externs (or students) so you buy your own food and can cook whatever you want. Luckily they opened a new supermarche about a 1/2 mile away. I was able to walk without the hassle of a taxi (ya know not speaking arabic is also a hinderance). It is completely bizarre going from the old medina with open air markets and fresh meat and fruit to a modern grocery store very similar to Wal-Mart within a few miles of each other. I grabbed the essentials: diet coke, bread, peanut butter, diet coke, apples, cheese, diet coke, pasta, and a towel (yup didn't mention I needed to bring my own). Luckily eating out isn't expensive and the food is delicious because clearly I won't be cooking much. I have been assigned my cases (which means I'm responsible for their treatments and medications as well as discussing what to do next) and I will start with them tomorrow...more to come as I learn about them.  I will forewarn those reading (aka my family) I will post some maybe not so appetizing photos of "vet stuff" just scroll fast and you will be ok. For now here are some pictures of the fondouk and the medina.
Au revoir!

The gate of the Fondouk with my tour guide/moroccan intern

Treatment Area

Stalls

Courtyard and ambulance (those trees second as donkey stables)

Yes, we have a pool!

Gate into the Palace

View of Fes out of the medina...cant see very well

inside the Medina